JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A presidential candidate getting relatively little attention could dramatically impact the 2024 race for the White House: Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
Many political observers believe Stein impacted the 2016 Presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump by siphoning votes from Hillary Clinton in swing states. Fast forward to 2020 when Stein and the Green Party didn’t qualify in many swing states like Georgia, where the difference between Trump and Biden was only around 11,000, in Wisconsin, where the vote difference was around 20,000, and in Arizona, where the difference was around 11,000.
But now Stein is already on the ballot in Arizona and Wisconsin and the Green Party reports it is in the process of getting on Georgia’s ballot.
MORE: What we know, and don’t know, about the presidential debates
“Sometimes the impact of a third-party candidate or Green Party candidate on the Democratic party can be overrated. However when you’re talking about margins of less than 10,000, any type of loss in a traditional Democratic voting block could be devastating for the Democrats,” said Daniel Cronrath, a political science professor at Florida State College at Jacksonville.
Another issue worth watching is the pro-Palestinian activists on college campuses nationwide. It’s widely believed that those activists typically skew Democrat, but Stein is pushing for that voting block and was recently arrested at a pro-Palestinian event in Missouri.
Ryan Delaney with the Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity network is watching Stein.
“I think that what Jill Stein has done sticking her neck out for the Palestinian people shows a lot of courage but it also shows that it is possible for these candidates to represent people’s interest,” Delaney said. “If you look at the large number of people that are coming out and supporting us they feel very disenfranchised by the two-party system. So yes, a lot of them are looking at candidates like Jill Stein.”
But Cronrath did mention something important.
Historically, he said, third-party candidates often poll higher than what they eventually get in November and oftentimes voters come home to one of the two major parties.
Another 2024 presidential candidate, Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has received more media coverage than Stein, which is why News4JAX wanted to do this story.